AP Photos Above: Chris Ott, right, helps her son, former Marine John Thomas Doody. J.T., who was shot while serving in Fallujah, Iraq., subsequently suffering an infection and a series of strokes that left him in a coma and relying on a ventilator to survive, Tuesday, in Riverview, Fla.

WASHINGTON (AP) — John Thomas Doody was in a coma and on a ventilator, but his mom refused to follow a doctor’s advice and put the Iraq war veteran in a nursing home.